Xbox Analyst Meeting

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Shrek and DoA 3 highlights of Microsoft's big pitch to the world market.

By IGN Staff

Shrek was the ugly princess of the Xbox ball, according to a Reuters story today. It seems that the antics of the farting ogre impressed the group of over 300 Wall Street analysts that were at the Microsoft offices for a financial analyst meeting promoting the company's upcoming software and hardware. While the new operating system and business software was a major part of the day's affairs, the Xbox provided a light-hearted look at the company's latest direction, console gaming.

John O'Rourke, Director of Games Sales and Marketing, began by reiterating Microsoft's goals with the Xbox, explaining that "with Xbox, we're going to be delivering games that are not only within the traditional franchises that you may be familiar with, games like Madden and Tony Hawk Pro Skater, games that gamers are familiar with, but as well new franchises, ones that have never been discovered before that will be the franchises of tomorrow, that will be the games that people talk about." Marketing power, software partners and launch details were reiterated, such as the shipping goal of 600 to 800,000 units for launch, finishing the fiscal year with around 4 ¿ and 6 million units shipped. As for titles, O'Rourke mentioned that over 40 titles were being worked on within Microsoft studios alone, with 100 titles from a variety of sources hitting by the end of the year. He also said that over 80 exclusive titles are currently being developed for the Xbox as well.

Afterwards, our red-headed pal Seamus Blackley demonstrated Shrek at the event, showing off Shrek's unique ability to fart his way past enemies. He then showed off Shrek's ability to swallow hot peppers to create fiery belches that burn opponents to a crisp. Used together Shrek can even emit special super-farts that... we assume smell horrible and kill big stuff. He also showed some of the game's incredible lighting tricks, such as being able to change from night to day on the fly by throwing Humpty Dumpty against a clock He then showed off DoA 3, explaining the other reason that the Tecmo team was most likely at the Seattle offices this week. He did the deadly deed and duked it out with Itagaki himself, showing off the Forest environment and the free movement that make DoA so interesting.

Unfortunately, Microsoft representatives did not reveal when the Xbox would be released in Japan, certainly a hot topic with analysts, editors, and Japanese fans alike. If you'd like to know more about the meeting, take a look at the complete transcript. More importantly, if you want to see video of the meeting, complete with some of the gameplay footage, then make sure to check out the streaming video. Thanks to Activate.net for the footage.